


Ghosts in the Throat

by yet_intrepid



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alien Planet, Gen, Language Barrier, Shiro (Voltron) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Shiro (Voltron)'s Missing Year, Shiro (Voltron)-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:33:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27130490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yet_intrepid/pseuds/yet_intrepid
Summary: “What’s the bad news,” Shiro interrupts, because he’s starting to get a sinking feeling in his stomach from waiting.“Ah yes,” Coran says. “The bad news. The, uh, bad news is, the Cohela do not trust translation technology. Think it has all sorts of bugs and trackers and lie software in it. They’ve invented a counter-tech program that allows them to block translation.”“Sounds like something worth taking apart,” Pidge says.Note: This is a perpetually-unfinished WIP, and is being posted for the Good Intentions abandoned fic event!
Relationships: Matt Holt & Shiro, Pidge | Katie Holt & Shiro
Comments: 9
Kudos: 39
Collections: Good Intentions: Abandoned and Unfinished WIPs





	Ghosts in the Throat

**Author's Note:**

> This event/collection got me super excited when I saw it on tumblr (goodintentionswipfest) - I'm the kind of person who definitely reads abandoned fics, and who also has a lot of them, and it's nice to deliberately give myself the forgiveness but also joy of putting some up. I wrote what exists of this one not long after entering the Voltron fandom, so probably around early 2017, and although I never came back to it, my urge to worldbuild around Shiro's missing year defiinitely stuck with me through all my VLD fics.
> 
> The title comes from "Late Summer after a Panic Attack" by Ada Limon.

“There’s good news and there’s bad news,” says Coran, over the coms, and Shiro braces himself. Coran’s good news is never the best, and Shiro doesn’t have time for this. They’re flying into a tense diplomatic meeting, just him and Pidge—the other three got caught in a firefight on the way over, and Allura and Coran are doing major repairs on the castle from their last big battle. Matt’s radio announcer impression plays in his head: what can possibly go wrong next?

“Bad news first,” Shiro tells Coran, as he guides his lion into atmo.

“Are you sure you don’t want the good news first?”

“Fine, good news first.” He keeps an eye on the cameras for Pidge, coming in behind him against the planet’s sunset. Thankfully, she seems fine.

“The good news,” Coran says, his voice brightening, “is that the Cohela have relented. They will allow you and Pidge both to present your case for the alliance together!”

Pidge, on the camera, raises an eyebrow. “That…wasn’t already the plan?”

“I may have forgotten to tell you that bit,” Coran admits. “I was hoping to bring them around on it, and after all, look what happened! The Cohela have a tradition of interviewing ambassadors separately—rather genius, really, to make sure everything lines up, you know—but they’re willing to make an exception, and I told them you, we are extremely grateful—”

“What’s the bad news,” Shiro interrupts, because he’s starting to get a sinking feeling in his stomach from waiting.

“Ah yes,” Coran says. “The bad news. The, uh, bad news is, the Cohela do not trust translation technology. Think it has all sorts of bugs and trackers and lie software in it. They’ve invented a counter-tech program that allows them to block translation.”

“Sounds like something worth taking apart,” Pidge says.

“Don’t compromise the mission, Pidge,” Allura warns, filtering in through the same channel as Coran. “We can’t sabotage the Cohela headquarters and then expect them to trust us.”

“But we can’t communicate with them,” Shiro says. The sinking feeling is getting worse, more like all his organs are being sucked out an exhaust port. “How are we supposed to complete the mission at all? Pidge speaks some Altean—”

“It’s a ten thousand year old dialect and I can barely conjugate a regular verb,” Pidge interrupts.

“Pidge speaks a few words of Altean,” Shiro corrects himself. “Princess, we can’t negotiate an alliance with that.”

“I assumed you spoke Galra,” Allura says, and that’s it, Shiro’s stomach drops straight into outer space. “It’s a common trade language and almost all the Cohela are fluent. Or did you have translation tech while you were there?”

“No,” Shiro says slowly. He can feel the anxiety start to fade into the distance as he resigns himself. “No tech. I speak Galra.” The sinking of his gut is replaced with that floaty feeling he’s come to know as dissociation—he’s already staring at his hands like they aren’t his as they smoothly hit buttons on the dashboard to prep for landing. But he can live with that. He can function with that.

“Perfect!” Allura is saying over the coms, cheerful and confident. “You’ll do a wonderful job, I’m sure. Let us know if you need anything!”

“Thank you, Princess,” Shiro says, and he hears the call switch off.

“Shiro?” Pidge says, as they guide their lions towards the landing pad they’ve been given coordinates for.

“Yeah?”

“You never said—” She cuts off. “So you couldn’t communicate when you got there? When they first captured you, I mean.”

Shiro swallows. “I don’t remember,” he says. It’s not totally true. “But presumably, no, we couldn’t.”

Pidge goes quiet a moment. Then: “If you ever want me to hack their thing, just say the word. Okay?”

“You heard Allura.” Shiro touches the black lion down and takes a deep breath. Patience yields focus. “We can’t risk it.”

He can do this. He won’t like it, but he can do it.

When they descend from the lions, a rather fluffy-looking alien greets them. She’s something like a ferret and something like an Ewok from Star Wars—not, Shiro thinks, the sort of being he would expect to be so careful with technological security.

Not the sort of being he would expect to be greeting them in Galra.

“Warriors of Voltron,” she says, and Shiro realizes with a start there’s no exact Galra equivalent for the word _paladin_ , at least not one that he knows. He’s just lucky she didn’t say _champions_. “The negotiation will begin tomorrow at dawn. Tonight you will dine with the High Council.”

“Thank you,” Shiro says, or as close as the language comes to it. It’s more like some combination between _I honor you_ and _I will repay_. Then he turns to translate for Pidge, who is looking frustrated.

“She’s just giving us the schedule,” he says. “Dinner tonight, then meetings tomorrow.”

“Cool,” says Pidge. “Tell her thanks for me? I don’t wanna be rude.”

Shiro tries to translate that without making any promises of repayment on Pidge’s behalf, but after stumbling enough that the Cohela starts to look at him funny, he gives up in hopes that she’ll take them to their rooms to freshen up and let them be until dinner.

After he says _the green warrior will honor you by repaying this debt_ twice, their guide seems satisfied enough to do just that.

\----

_The aliens are yelling at them again. They’ve been yelling nonstop for—Shiro doesn’t know how long. Thirty minutes, maybe. His head is starting to ache and his shoulders and wrists are sore from having his hands cuffed behind him. But he can’t tell what the aliens are saying, and they certainly didn’t seem to like it last time he tried to talk to them. We’re unarmed, he’d said, and one of them had driven its boot deep into his spine._

_Then they’d dragged him and the Holts through some block of cells, leaving them chained to the wall in a long, dim room. Shiro hasn’t spoken since, because Doc Holt hasn’t, and he’s the commander. Times like this, Shiro thinks, all you can do is obey your commander._

_The alien who’s currently leaning over them pulls off Doc Holt’s helmet, then Matt’s. Shiro’s is already gone, ripped away in the initial fight. He exchanges glances with Matt, hoping for some kind of hint on Doc Holt’s plan, but Matt just shrugs._

_Then the alien moves in, grabbing for Matt’s face, squeezing his chin till his mouth pops open. Matt lets out a sharp yelp of pain._

_Immediately, the alien lets go, checking some computer-type device strapped around his wrist. Looking back at Matt, he circles his finger, almost like the sign for again._

_Matt looks at Shiro, looks at his dad. The alien’s hand comes up like he’s going to smack Matt across the face, and then Doc Holt raises his voice._

_“Holt, Samuel,” he says, loud and clear. “Commander. S-27954.”_

_It’s what Shiro’s been waiting for. “Shirogane, Takashi,” he chimes in. “Private First Class. S-31888.”_

_“Holt, Matthew,” says Matt, and the three of the them are all talking at once now, almost in unison. “Cadet. S-31963.”_

_The alien watches his device. It’s registering something like vocal patterns, Shiro thinks, squinting at it as he gets into the rhythm. Name. Rank. Serial number. Name. Rank. Serial number._

_The alien hits Matt, an open-handed slap with a hint of claw. Matt reels backward, unable to balance himself without use of his hands, and Shiro tries to edge his shoulder in to prop him up. It works okay—not great, but okay._

_“Shirogane, Takashi,” he says. “Private First Class—”_

_“S-27954,” Doc Holt is saying, and finally Matt finds his voice again to pick it up, too._

_“Holt, Matthew, Cadet, S-31963.”_

_“Shirogane, Takashi. Private First Class. S-31888…”_

_The alien hits Matt again. Shiro sees Doc Holt stiffen, feels a shudder in his own shoulders. Why Matt, he wonders? Are they picking on the smallest? Or is it because he was the first to make a sound?_

_—Sound._

_He bumps Matt with his shoulder, nudging his head at Doc Holt. Matt nudges his dad in turn, and Doc Holt looks back over at Shiro and nods permission._

_“Translators,” Shiro whispers fast under his breath. “Commander, they’re trying to program their translators.”_

_“Fuck,” Matt breathes, automatically. “Dad, Star Trek lied!”_

_The alien is peering at the device again, which is clearly already registering their words. Doc Holt looks around the room, like he’s taking in the situation._

_“If we can communicate,” he says at last, “we may be able to reason with them. Let’s try to cooperate for now; they may not be hostile after all.”_

_“May not be hostile?” Matt repeats, his pitch rising incredulously. Doc Holt fixes him with a stern look, which morphs into sharp concern as the alien kicks Matt in the gut..._

“Shiro?”

Shiro spins, his arm coming up defensively. When he sees Pidge peering through the door between their suites, he takes in a deep breath.

“Pidge,” he says. “Sorry. Lost in thought.”

“Right.” She comes into the room with her head tilted and her helmet under her arm; it’s clear she can see through his front. “We’re supposed to go to dinner, right?”

Shiro jolts again, this time to look at the clock, and tries to think of something casual to say. “It’s a good thing we can go in our armor, huh? I wouldn’t want to have to guess what formalwear on every new planet looks like.”

“Yeah.” She drops her helmet on his bed. “Not gonna take this though.”

“Good plan,” Shiro says. He’s still halfway back in the memory, still half-bewildered that he can move his arms when he expects to find them cuffed. But they’re almost late to dinner with the Cohela High Council, and his PTSD is just going to have to wait.

When he and Pidge stride into the banquet hall right on time, the High Council at the head table rises to great them. There’s probably fifteen other tables, but thankfully they don’t seem to have to meet everyone. The twelve members of the High Council are more than enough, especially as they each seem to want an individual greeting before Shiro and Pidge can be seated. Shiro pushes through it, over and over, squeezing through the words that feel ugly on his tongue just by association, let alone repetition. By the time he and Pidge sit down at one end of the head table, Pidge is looking at him with concern.

“You all right?” she whispers.

Shiro gives her the most comforting smile he can manage. “As long as this food isn’t toxic to humans, I’ll be fine.”

Pidge punches his leg under the table, but a little bit of the tension seems to lift from her shoulders. “I have a question,” she goes on.

Shiro looks around the table. For a diplomatic dinner, none of the High Council is paying them much attention. In fact, there’s hardly any talking—just a few hushed exchanges. Shiro wonders if silence at meals is another of these Cohela traditions.

“Sure,” he murmurs back to Pidge.

“I was going to say that I’m sure Coran gave them the data on what we can eat and stuff, but how did Coran work out the meeting, anyway? If they had to send you because you speak Galra—”

“Coran and Allura speak Galra, too,” Shiro explains. Anger tugs at him; he takes a deep breath. Patience in, focus out. Patience in—and focus out. “But it’s like the Altean that you’ve been learning, millennia out of date. They can hold a conversation, but diplomacy is trickier. Words don’t mean the same things they used to.”

“Can you teach me Galra?” Pidge asks. “I mean, not if—I want to help. And I also just hate when I can’t understand.”

“I’ll try and give you a crash course tonight,” Shiro promises. “But don’t worry about me, Pidge, okay? I’ve definitely done worse things than this.”

Pidge pokes reluctantly at something like a vegetable on her plate. “Yeah, but that still doesn’t mean you should have to do it.”

She shoves the vegetable thing in her mouth, makes a disgusted face, and reaches for her cup. Shiro sighs. Even if it’s technically edible, this is going to be a long dinner.

\----

Shiro tries to make some casual conversation with the council member sitting next to him, but it doesn’t go over well. He’s discouraged as he and Pidge head back to their rooms—pre-negotiation banquets often can be trusted to give him a feel for what the next day’s going to look like, and this one doesn’t seem to be promising anything good.

Still, they have what Pidge’s converter (actually Hunk’s converter, but Pidge has it) estimates to be about fifteen Earth hours before the meeting, since Cohela has long days. Plenty of time to sleep, teach Pidge some basic phrases, and review his thoughts on potential alliance terms.

“So,” says Pidge, settling onto Shiro’s bed once they’ve both changed from the paladin armor to their Earth clothes. She has a datapad, where she clearly plans to type extensive notes. “Galra. What’s the best language learning strategy customized to its differences from English?”

Shiro sits down on the bed too, folding up his legs and leaning back against the headboard so he’s across from Pidge. He laughs a little at the question. “Well, not the way I learned it, that’s for sure.”

“I thought you said you didn’t remember,” Pidge says, carefully.

“Not everything,” Shiro says, and that _is_ true. “But I thought about it before dinner, and I can put the pieces together.” He keeps his breathing steady. Patience in, he reminds himself, and focus out. “The reason we couldn’t communicate when we first got there is that even a universal translator has a learning curve. I think the castle’s translators learned English from Blue’s bond with Lance, so we didn’t notice that as a problem when we landed on Arus. But there wasn’t anything like that with the Galra, and they wanted to program the translators for English so we couldn’t make escape plans behind their backs. So, you know.” He sighs. “I didn’t learn in a way that I’d recommend to you.”

Pidge raises both eyebrows at him, like she’s waiting for more explanation.

“Let’s start with some basic phrases,” Shiro says instead.

Thankfully, Pidge agrees. Shiro teaches her to say “hello” and then moves on to “where is the bathroom,” which they both agree is necessary in case they get separated. Pidge extrapolates “where is Shiro” from this and tries to play peekaboo with him, which he indulges for a while until her put-on baby voice starts ruining her Galra accent.

“You’re no fun, Shiro,” she pouts.

“Oh yeah?” Shiro twists his brain for something to prove her wrong, just because proving Pidge wrong is so rare that it’s delightful. “I can teach you how to say _fuck Zarkon_.”

Pidge lights up. “Oh my God,” she squeaks. “Yes, oh my God, yes, Lance will be so jealous.”

Shiro laughs. “All right,” he says, “here we go. _Zarkon marzit._ ” It’s the angrier version of the swear, as opposed to the dirtier version, and he pronounces it carefully to minimize the risk of it getting mixed up with other variations on the theme.

“It sounds like you’re cursing him with zits,” Pidge says, skeptical.

Shiro had certainly never made that association before. “It probably sounds better if you yell it, but I doubt that’s a good idea given our current situation.”

“What if I whisper it really angrily instead?” Pidge theorizes. “That might be effective.”

“Let’s do it together,” suggests Shiro. It feels really silly, in a way—but if he has to speak this language, this language whose knowledge he earned through blows and fear, he might as well put it to some good use. Might as well use it to bond with Pidge.

“On three,” Pidge says, and there’s a serious glimmer in her eyes. Shiro feels something very like that glimmer inside his chest.

“One,” Pidge says. “Two. And three.”

“ _Zarkon marzit_ ,” they whisper, and Shiro blinks and he doesn’t know where he is.

\----

_“The Emperor Zarkon is most displeased,” Sendak is saying from somewhere far above. Or not really that far, probably, but Shiro is curled on the floor and his head is ringing, so it sounds far. He hopes it is, even though he thinks he’s in one of the solitary cells now and they’re not very big. He doesn’t want to Sendak to hit him with his prosthetic, like he did the last time Shiro’s arena performance was considered sloppy._

_“You should really take more pride in your work, Champion,” Sendak goes on, deeply tinged with sarcasm. “Zarkon makes a point to watch your matches on live broadcast. Few other fighters have ever been so honored.”_

_Shiro curls tighter into himself. He hates it when Sendak talks this way, hates how he almost believes it. Can’t they just hand him his beating and have done?_

_Sendak goes on talking, though, and Shiro tries to drown him out. Tries to focus on anything else, his fear or the pain in his head or the anger that’s slowly welling up inside._

_“—could really go far if you’d work a little harder,” Sendak says. “Zarkon…”_

_“Fuck Zarkon!” Shiro cries out, his voice like a foreign thing, and then he tries to curl up tighter because shit, shit, he should not have done that. Sendak hauls him up by the neck, and there it is—the burst of pain._

\----

Shiro doesn’t sleep much that night. He tells Pidge he’s going to, but mostly because she keeps looking at him like he’s about to collapse ever since he flashbacked right in front of her. He suspects she won’t sleep unless he says he will, and one of them needs to be able to think during the meeting.

Somebody brings breakfast by about an hour before negotiations are scheduled to start. Shiro thanks them, realizing as though from a great distance that the Galra words are coming more easily already. Then he knocks on Pidge’s door.

There’s some clunking and rustling, which causes Shiro to raise his eyebrows. _Did_ Pidge sleep? Maybe she spent the night taking apart the anti-translation tech, or rigging up some new program to teach herself Galra. He knocks again.

“Come in!” Pidge calls, sounding half-asleep. Shiro pulls the door open, guiding the hover-tray of food through ahead of him. Pidge is in the big bed, computer balanced on her pulled-up knees. She rubs at her eyes as Shiro comes in.

“Hey,” she says. “Food, huh?”

“Yeah,” says Shiro. “Let’s hope it’s not as terrible as last night was.”

“It smells disgusting,” Pidge says. “I brought some of Hunk’s pack-along granola bar thingies. You want one of those?”

“Yes,” Shiro says, immediately.

“Hang on,” Pidge says. “They’re in my backpack.”

She scrambles to get up. She’s fully dressed, except for shoes; Shiro wonders if she fell asleep that way. As she sets aside her laptop, her headphones pull out of their jack and a voice blares through the speakers.

It’s speaking Galra.

“The emperor Zarkon has announced tightened security on shipments between—”

“Shit!” says Pidge. She fumbles around, shuts it off. “Sorry, Shiro. I was trying to practice, so I tuned into a news broadcast to see if I could pick anything out, you know? It was kinda hard and I don’t know if I learned anything but yeah, sorry, I know last night—”

“Hey,” Shiro says. “It’s fine. I need to be able to deal with this language; I have to negotiate in it today. I know I freaked out on you a little last night, but I’ll do my best to keep that under control today.”

“How?” Pidge asks.

Shiro raises an eyebrow. “What do you mean, how?”

“I mean,” Pidge says, “it’s a flashback. It’s not like you can just tell them not to happen.”

“Well, no,” Shiro admits. “But sometimes—most of the time—I can tell if one’s coming. If I catch it, there are grounding techniques I can use to help mitigate the effects.”

“Okay,” Pidge says. “And what should I do if it happens during the meeting? —I’m just saying!” she adds defensively, when Shiro opens his mouth. “I know you can deal, okay, I don’t know how you do but you’re really good at it. But I just want to know that if something happens, I won’t wreck the alliance because all I know how to say is _where is the bathroom_!”

Shiro swallows. He wants to tell her nothing will happen, that she can trust him to be on top of his shit long enough to at least explain and excuse himself if he has to—but there’s no guarantee of that, just like there’s no guarantee in battle. And while the team seems to have figured out how to cover for his lapses in a firefight, this is a different set of skills.

“Okay,” he says, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “Here’s plan one. You still remember how to ask for the bathroom, right?”

“Yes,” says Pidge, raising a skeptical eyebrow. She sits down next to him.

“Okay, so if you can’t remember how to say anything else, say that. See if you can get someone to lead us there. Then I’ll be in a quiet place where I can recover.”

“Okay,” Pidge says, “but sometimes when you flashback you won’t move.”

Shiro nods. “I know,” he says. “I’m not going to lie, Pidge, it might be tricky. You can try calling Coran or Allura for backup, I guess. Or you could tell them—” He hesitates.

“Tell them what?”

“ _Sa uluzi_ _krestrum tlen,_ ” Shiro says.

“ _Sa uluzi krestrum tlen_ ,” Pidge repeats carefully. “What does that mean?”

“It’s the only thing that will allow us to save face if I show what they consider weakness,” Shiro says. “Galra doesn’t have words for things like _sick_ or _depressed_ , only _weak_. I don’t know how similar Cohela culture is to Galra culture, but the language itself is going to limit you. That sentence is an out, the only one I know. _Sa uluzi krestrum tlen._ ”

“What does it mean,” Pidge demands, her voice flat.

“It means,” Shiro says, taking a deep breath, “‘the black paladin offers his life-debt.’”

“And what does _that_ mean?”

Shiro shrugs, trying to play it casual. “I owe them, basically. They can demand any one favor of me and I’ll have to repay it immediately.”

“Or what?” Pidge’s face is hard and set.

Shiro can’t look at her. “Or they can hunt me down.”

Pidge reaches over, touching his shoulder. “I don’t get it,” she says. “Why would you need to offer a life-debt just because they saw you have a flashback?”

“Because it might be the only way, at that point, to get them to join the alliance.” Shiro tries to smile at her, tries to make it seem like everything’s fine. “You remember the sentence?”

“ _Sa uluzi krestrum tlen_ ,” Pidge parrots back at him. “But I’m not going to say it.”

Shiro raises his eyebrows. “Do you have a better plan?”

“Maybe,” Pidge says. She gets up, rummaging in her backpack for Hunk’s granola bars. “Is there a shower here?”

“Through that door, I think,” Shiro says. He points. “Negotiations start in twenty-five minutes.”

“Yeah, I know,” Pidge says. She tosses him a granola bar. “That’ll have to be enough time.”

Shiro sighs. “Don’t do anything rash,” he says to her back, as she disappears into the bathroom with her computer.

\----

As they’re led into the throne room (an unfriendly place, Shiro thinks, to negotiate an alliance), everything is quiet. On the dais, the members of the High Council sit perfectly still in their regal chairs.

Shiro draws a deep breath. He has to do this. There’s no way out.

“Honored members of the council,” he says in Galra, “the warriors of Voltron salute you.”

There’s shifting on the dais, but no response. Shiro feels unbearably small, awkward, defenseless. Pidge, at his side, bites her lip.

“We come on behalf of Princess Allura of Altea,” Shiro goes on, reiterating what he’s sure they already know. “We offer you protection against Zarkon’s empire, and seek in exchange resources from your planet. We know that the Cohela are experts in technology—”

The council member at the far left stands up, and Shiro falls silent.

“We have no need of protection against Zarkon,” she says. “Cohela has flourished these last years, making fine profits off our sales to the empire. What will it benefit us to have protection if we destroy our economy?”

“What benefit?” Shiro repeats—distant, dazed. He should have expected this, he thinks, from the cool reception. “The benefit of honest gain, of being in the moral right. The benefit of an economy not built on the labor of Zarkon’s slaves.”

A council member on the other side stands up. “And you are qualified to speak of this, certainly.” His voice drips disdain. “You, a fugitive prisoner! You may call yourself a warrior of Voltron, but you are a criminal. Why should we trust you to speak without bias when you call your sentence slavery?”

Shiro’s body goes heavy. He can sense Pidge at his side, shifting nervously, and he wants to comfort her, to explain. But he can’t move, he can’t move, and the world dims around him.

**Author's Note:**

> .......aaaaaaaaand scene. No, I don't remember how I was going to get them out of this, but I'm sure it would've involved Pidge being really smart, Shiro being really sad, critique of the Prison Industrial Complex But In Space, and probably a lot of hugs?
> 
> thanks for reading!


End file.
